To say they are very late to party, is really...... not correct. All of their OS' since Windows XP support tablet mode. iPad is nothing more than iPhone but bigger.. what Microsoft is doing here is something on a much larger scale.. Like the previous posts stated, If you want a toy, you would buy iPad.. If you want something that you could get real work done.. you'll fork over the extra $ and get an Surface Pro.... oh wait.. this isn't Apple so you could get an Asus "pro" or a Samsung "Pro" or whatever "Pro" that had more features/specs that you wanted...

I am a computer tech for a local bank and we use a ticket generator that is somewhat what you are looking for... http://www.serversys.com/heat/heat.html